


All In The Game

by SilviaKundera



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Con Artists, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-16
Updated: 2012-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-29 15:40:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilviaKundera/pseuds/SilviaKundera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU drabble. What if TSN was a con job?</p>
            </blockquote>





	All In The Game

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't my usual TSN fic. I just felt like playing around with an AU idea.

They do this every now and again, the two of them.

Sean shores up one side, Eduardo shores up another. Real life _Risk_ and _Ocean's 11_. It's a learning process.

Sometimes one of them fucks up.

Sometimes they both do.

They fucked up with Case Equity but had a ton of fun doing it. His father kept his name off the developing blogosphere – out of shame, or out of love, or maybe out of self-preservation. Or possibly something else entirely and far, _far_ more interesting.

They have the vague shape of a plan. Any more than that, and Sean says it kills the adventure.

Eduardo will befriend that clever coder who wouldn't sell out to Microsoft.

Be helpful and harmless and sweetly endearing.

And Sean will ride in like a galloping crusader and save Mark from mediocrity.

They'll never get to keep the original money on the table. That was never the game.

But Sean's secondary, temptingly lucrative, cost effective bid--

The payoff from that one they'll split.

And whatever else that comes rolling in later, in the settlement.

*

 _"Mr Saverin, is it true that you have been cohabiting with Sean Parker since a--week after your graduation from Harvard University?"_

 _Eduardo leans over to murmur in his counsel's ear._

 _"I can confirm that. Though my client doesn't see the relevance."_

 _"Your client doesn't-- You don't believe Mr. Zuckerberg would have felt entitled to information about the true relationship between the man who was suing him and the president of Facebook?"_

 _"Mr. Zuckerberg felt entitled to a whole lot of things, as I understand it. Now whether all of those things belonged to him, I believe that's what we're here to decide."_

*

It's nothing illegal.

At least--Eduardo doesn't think so. Not this time.

It won't even mostly necessitate lies. He will simply smile one way, and Sean the other.

Mark will never question if Sean had known Eduardo before. Eduardo will spill that Sean has secrets, a dirty little past -- just dirty enough to be everything enticing and forbidden to their brilliant little college sophomore, drowning in malaise and looking to rebel.

Eduardo just won't mention that he himself may be one of the names buried deep behind some of those headlines.

Mark will never ask, so he doesn't have to tell.

*

 _When they break for the last day, Eduardo stops by Mark's chair and lays a hand on his shoulder. He leans over and whispers,_

 _"Maybe we met again at a New York networking event and said let bygones be bygones._

 _Maybe we met over sushi and cocktails and I blew him in the bathroom, and that's how I got my knee wet that night, not some sloppy waiter._

 _Maybe we met when I was 15 and stupid for a suntan, a big dick, and an obsession with SnowCrash, and he promised me millions if I stuck with him, a chance to see the world someday._

 _Maybe the reason I could never be good enough for you is that I was never really trying._

 _I guess you'll never know._

 _Bye, Mark."_

 _Eduardo brushes his lips over Mark's cheek and smiles as Mark rubs over the spot with the back of his hand, frowning._

 _"In about 10 minutes your lawyers are going to tell you that you have to sign."_

 _"I don't think that's something I want to do," Mark says tersely._

 _"We all have to do unpleasant things to get what we want sometimes," Eduardo shoots back over his shoulder, slapping a palm against the doorway as he passes through. "It's still cute that you think you're special, though."_

*

They've never learned to cover their tracks terribly well. It's arrogance, plain and simple.

Once when they were younger and more foolishly eager, this high society peacock sent her friends over to Eduardo's place and they fucked him up good. ER had to tape his ribs and check his head and he'd bitten through his tongue.

Sean traced every bruise with his mouth for weeks, along his neck and his legs, and the thick tender one spreading across his back. He never said sorry.

But Eduardo wasn't either. Not really.

Not when they'd won.

*  
 _Dustin is waiting for Mark in the lobby in a polo shirt and wrinkled but expensive slacks, head curved into his chest as he types frantically into a phone. His head pops up at sound of Eduardo's feet on the marble floor._

 _"Wardo, hey. Uh, how goes i—"_

 _He trails abruptly off at the sight of Eduardo ditching his own phone and briefcase into the nearest trash receptacle._

 _They've found that it's generally best to just cut all cords, simple and direct – despite the melodrama inherent in the gesture._

 _"You were always a sweet kid," Eduardo remarks conversationally before continuing out to the car, "I hope you didn't lose sleep about not clueing me in. These things aren't personal."_

*

Sometimes Eduardo thinks he was supposed to be Sean's first scam.

His father is—his parents, they have a lot of money.

He got asked a lot of questions about them.

Casually, of course.

This suspicion, this logical supposition: This, he never tells Mark. Not Mark or Anthony or Amelia or Jesse or. So on.

He never asks, he never tells Sean.

It's not that he's afraid of the answer.

It's just that any reason that Sean could give for changing his mind could never be as romantic as any of the thousands of possibilities, any of the moments it could have been. Now all made priceless.

All that matters is what happened next. And what they're doing tomorrow.


End file.
